


Virtuous Eyes Get Cold

by lightningwaltz



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-09
Updated: 2012-03-09
Packaged: 2017-11-01 16:24:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/358886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/pseuds/lightningwaltz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>To rule, sometimes one’s blood must be as cold as the lands beyond the Wall.</i> Sansa and Arya rule the North together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Virtuous Eyes Get Cold

It’s fully springtime, when Sansa hears of a nascent rebellion. It’s been raining every other day, and when she steps foot outside, she’s aware of countless growing things. Stubborn patches of snow cling to earth in many locations, but can sense the world coming alive. Sansa was born in weather much like this, and it calls to mind some of her earliest, pleasantest memories; Sansa and her lady mother eating blackberries, drinking tea, staring at Arya, and listening to singers spin fanciful tales.

Sansa is less fond of the news her messenger brings. Her boot sink into the mud, as she learns that Ondrew Locke’s heir, the new Lord of Oldcastle, is raising a revolt. That he’s claiming to have discovered a convenient strain Stark blood in his lineage (never mind that the every House in the Northern nobility could claim the same), that he’s a man, that both of these facts make him more suitable to rule Winterfell than two women.

Arya is pacing to and fro, as she hears of this. Her hair is cut short, she tromps about in men’s clothes, and Sansa is glad to have her ruling by her side in spirit, if not in name. Together they are two sides of one coin, presenting two faces that Northern women could wear. Wild and fierce, or subtle and clever. The men and women pledged to their service adore them for it.

“Hmph.” Arya looks unimpressed, once they are alone.

“Yes? What?”

“He’s risking very little by waiting until spring,” Arya says. “He’ll look like a coward to his men.”

Sansa sighs. “Better now than in the Winter. He doesn’t want to sacrifice lives needlessly,” she says, graciously.

“That’s stupid, I can think of better ways for him to avoid death.” Arya is quite serious. Sansa remembers when they first reunited, and her sister had been as readable as a book in a foreign script. Until the night she had broken down, and told Sansa almost everything. Almost.

Yes, Arya takes death seriously.

“And how is that?”

“By not rebelling in the first place.” And then it’s like a dance, or a sword fight, the thing they begin to do. Arya tilts her head and bites her lip, and the question hangs in the air as tangible as the scent of blood after a direwolf has torn a man’s throat to shreds.

Sansa considers it, the murder she’s about to set in motion, then nods her head infinitesimally. “We’ll deal with that when it comes.”

*

Several days later, messengers bring new information. Lord Locke has passed away from a heart attack, surprising no one. He ate poorly, and was known to have ill health. The rebellion has been called off as suddenly as it was proclaimed. The new Lord of Oldcastle send Sansa an offer of marriage, an institution which is a battle of a different kind, and she throws the letter in a pile of other non-pressing correspondences to eventually answer.

No one suspects Arya in his demise, of course. How could they?

After the news the two sisters sit in silence in the godswood, and Sansa ruminates on how her father would come her after executing a man. This is not her father’s way, sending an assassin to do her work, but Sansa knows she needs to forge a new way. She wants to reign, rebuild the North, replenish their stores of food for the next Winter, and help heal a war torn land. The last thing, the very last thing, that Winterfell needs right now is another battle. She wouldn’t have asked it of Arya (nor would have asked it when they had last arranged the death of someone who was threatening the tentative peace) if Arya seemed to enjoy the task too much. But her sister takes to killing the way Sansa takes to diplomacy; as a necessity as crucial as threading a needle when it comes time to sew.

“I feel selfish,” Sansa says, watch dust and dirty fly about in the sun. The weirwoods bloody eyes watch them, bearing witness to what they say and do. “But perhaps not selfish enough.”

To rule, sometimes one’s blood must be as cold as the lands beyond the Wall.

Arya reaches over and squeezes her hand. “All men must die,” she says.

It’s a strange turn of phrase her sister has picked up from her travels abroad. Arya will never tell her the entire truth, but Sansa knows how it ends, at least.

“All men must serve.”


End file.
